1. Field of Invention
The invention relates to a multimedia editing method, and more particularly to a clip editing method using double time axes and an assistant display mode.
2. Related Art
Currently, multimedia editing methods include linear editing and nonlinear editing. The conventional linear editing method relies heavily on the uses of various hardware devices. The linear editing process is a tape-to-tape copying process. Therefore, the linear editing method is expensive, inflexible, and inefficient. Moreover, if the screen effects to be processed are too complicated, it is almost impossible to edit them without using fancy hardware devices. Otherwise, a great deal of effort and time have to be spent on repeatedly processing the same frame. All such inconveniences render the linear editing and processing method less favorable. This method is only adopted by very few television media companies.
The nonlinear editing method is a newly-emerged technology. Since the nonlinear method uses a digitized way to edit multimedia clips, it is thus more convenient, flexible and efficient, but less expensive in processing than the linear method. It is currently the most popular multimedia editing and processing method. Such nonlinear multimedia editing method use a single time axis to represent the time relation of the information in a media file. The three-point control method may be used to define a media clip to be edited by setting an in-point, an out-point, and a current-point set by a user. Then, various media editing processes for the media clip may be performed.
However, the conventional three-point control method is likely to cause problems when a source media file is too long. Take a two-hour long media file as an example, a clip in the media file the clips visible to the user on the horizontal time axis are in units of 5 minutes, 10 minutes, or 20 minutes (depending upon the multimedia editing and processing software). Using the three-point control method, the user can only perform large-area media clip editing. There is no way to quickly and precisely find the desired media contents in a media clip for detailed processing. Sometimes it is even impossible to perform editing. Therefore, one cannot make high-quality media using the conventional software.
Therefore, it is necessary to develop a media editing and processing method based upon current computer software technology to provide a new user interface for media clip presentation. Not only should the user experience more precise media clip visualization, the software should also enables the user to perform precise and detailed editing on an assigned media clip in a more efficient and convenient way.